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The Leopard and the Hare.

Once upon a time there was some trouble between a leopard and a hare. The leopard had cheated the hare of his goat. As the leopard could not find the means to repay the hare, the leopard asked the hare to go with him to visit some kinsfolk on an island where he might obtain a goat to pay the debt.

The leopard said to the hare, “Make up four lunches, because the part of the lake we have to cross is dangerous, and unless you throw some food into it to appease the lake spirit you cannot cross it safely. I will also take four lunches and throw them into the lake.”

The leopard, however, instead of tying up food, tied up four stones as packages and took his food in a bag. When they had floated some distance on a raft, the leopard said to the hare, “Throw over your food here.” So, the hare threw his lunches into the lake. When they reached the island, and were walking up from the shore, the leopard said, “In the bag of a great person there is always something to eat,” and he took out some food and began to eat it, but he did not give the hare any.

The hare understood then that the leopard meant to starve him to death to escape paying his debt. When they had gone a little further, the leopard said, “When the host brings us beer to drink in the place to which we are going, you go and bring a beer tube with which to drink it. The hare promised to do so. When they arrived at the garden, they were given some beer, and the hare went to bring a beer tube, but when he came back, he found the leopard had drunk all the beer.

In like manner when they were about to have a meal, the leopard said to the hare, “Go and bring a plantain stem with which we may wash our hands.” The hare went, but before he could return with it, the leopard had eaten all the food without washing his hands. The hare was very hungry, but said nothing.

In the evening after dark the leopard, unobserved, slipped out quietly, stole a little goat from the neighbours, and killed and ate it. He took some of the blood and smeared it over the head and eyebrows of the hare while he was asleep. Early the next morning the people missed their little goat and accused the visitors of stealing it, because they traced the footprints to the house. The leopard came out saying, “I know nothing about it, perhaps my companion does.”

When the hare came out, the blood was on his head, and he was accused and condemned. The leopard pretended before the people that he was very angry, saying, “I will not go about with a thief; take him and kill him.” The hare was then killed. When the leopard returned home, he told a long story and pretended to be sorry for his companion who had thus been caught and killed. The brother of the hare did not believe the story. He, therefore, went to one of the spirits and asked his advice. The brother was told how the Leopard had caused the death of the hare.

The brother, therefore, went to the leopard and said, “You must pay me that debt now that my brother is dead.” The leopard agreed to do so, and also expressed his sorrow for the death of the hare.
The leopard said, “Let us go to the island where my people live; they may help me to pay the debt.”

The brother of the hare agreed, and the leopard told him he must take four lunches to appease the lake spirit.  The brother of the hare had been warned of the trick, and therefore put stones into the packages as the leopard had done; he also put two very white cowry shells and some food into his bag, and went off to meet the leopard at the lake.

When they reached the place where the leopard said the lake spirit had to be appeased, they dropped their packages into the lake, and then proceeded on the raft to the island.When they arrived and were walking up from the lake, the leopard said, “In the bag of a great person
there is always food.”

The brother of the hare said, “No.” He put his hand into his bag and brought out some food. When the leopard saw this, he was very angry and said, “Eat mine also; I don’t like impertinent people.” When they reached the border of the garden, the leopard said, “When we come to these people and they offer us beer, you must run and bring a beer tube.” The brother of the hare thought for a moment what he could do to be even with the leopard, so he said, “I feel sick, wait while I turn aside into the grass.”  He had, however, gone to cut a beer tube, which he hid away in his clothing to be a match for the leopard in the next trick he would try to play.

When they reached the garden the leopard said, “When we are given food you bring a plantain stem to wash our hands.” The brother of the hare said he would, but he made an excuse to turn aside again; and while he was away he got the plantain stem and hid that also in his clothing.

When they were given beer, the leopard said, “Bring a tube for us to drink the beer.” The brother of the hare ran away, then, to get it, and came back at once with it, saying, “Do you see how quickly I run? Here is the tube.” When they were given food the leopard said, “Bring a plantain stem for us to wash our hands.” The brother of the hare ran off and came back almost at once, saying, “See how fast I run; here it is.”

After sunset when they went to rest, the brother of the hare took his two cowry shells and fixed them on his eyes and went to bed. Presently the leopard slipped out quietly and stole a goat from their neighbours, which he killed and ate. Then he brought some of the blood to put on the brother of the hare; but, seeing the white shells shining, he thought they were his open eyes and said, “Are you not asleep?” This waked the brother of the hare and he replied, “No, I am sick.”

The leopard went away for a time and then tried again, but again he found the brother of the hare apparently awake, and stole back to his bed. By this time, it was daylight and the people had missed their goat and followed the footprints to the house in which the guests were. There they called out, saying, “The visitors have stolen our goat.”

The brother of the hare ran out and said, “I am no thief; examine me and see.” When the leopard came out, they saw the blood on his mouth and fingers; so, he was condemned to death. The brother of the hare said, “I will not go with a thief; let him be killed.” The leopard was taken and killed. The brother of the hare was thus avenged of the hare’s death.

Folktale from Madagascar

 

 

 

Nigeria. Telling their tales of suffering.

Kidnappings, rapes and murders are part of daily life for many in the north of Nigeria. Boko Haram continues on its path of violence and destruction. Stories of suffering and pain. The Church stays by the side of the people. 

There are some days that are carved into memory and never leave us. The memories keep coming back with their anguish and pain. It was on a Thursday, 18 January of 2018 when Keviana saw with her own eyes the murder of her three children by the Boko Haram Jihadists. She had first fled to Cameroon but had now returned and found emergency refuge on church property near the cathedral of Yola, in the north of Nigeria. The camp holds 172 women, 30 men and 500 children. The shelters are improvised using plastic sheets and sheets of corrugated iron. Keviana leans on a stone wall where she has her house. Tall and oval-faced, her gaze is serious and profound. Next to her, Sister Maria Vitalis Timtere tries to make eye contact but Keviana’s eyes are but a blank stare but she begins to speak: “We live in Kaya, a village in the district of Madagali. We were small farmers. My husband became ill and died young. I brought up our six children, three boys and three girls. The children were all going to school and I was proud of them”.

In a sad voice, she continued: “It was dark when they came, about nine in the evening. My smallest child, Innocent and I, were sleeping in the same room while the other two boys, Kenneth and David, slept in another. My two daughters Salomi and Sarah were not at home having gone to stay with friends and the youngest girl Rose had gone to Yola to do an English exam. All of a sudden we heard shooting, shouts and the sound of motorcycles and cars. From the window we saw some people coming into our courtyard carrying guns. I looked around and Innocent said: “Mamma, let’s block the door “. I told him to hide under the bed. After a few minutes, someone kicked in the door and they came inside the house. They shout at me saying they want money. I tell them I have nothing and I am a widow. Then they beat me, threatening to kill me if I do not give them money. One of them gathered up the few belongings I had. When they grabbed the mattress they saw my boy. Without a moment’s hesitation, they shot him at point-blank range”. Raising her finger to her forehead, Keviana says: “Right here”.
Others are trying to enter the room where Kenneth and David are hiding. They open the door, shouting. The two boys are paralysed with fear. The men drag them outside to join their mother. Keviana says: “ I saw them fire two shots. My two boys fell dead in a pool of blood”. The memory brings floods of tears to her eyes.

The forest of fear
For more than a decade, Boko Haram terrorists have been bringing death, destruction and fear to the people of northern Nigeria.
There have been at least thirty thousand deaths and almost 2.8 million people have been displaced.
Some say the jihadists have supernatural powers. One place where they hide is in the Sambisa forest. This is in a national park where tourists could once see monkeys, antelopes, ostriches and elephants. Today the forest is a refuge where terrorists have imprisoned thousands of people. Kaya, Keviana’s village, is close to the Sambisa forest. In 2014, the family had already gone to Yola fleeing from Boko Haram. Six months later, they returned. They wanted to live in their own home and cultivate their fields. The government said they could safely return. Keviana paid a high price for this mistake.

Listening helps
Many of the camp residents come from villages near the forest. Almost all of them have witnessed the death of family members, friends or neighbours, and even their own children, in some cases. “Seeing people who have to live with the fact that someone has killed their children before their very eyes breaks my heart “, says Sister Maria. Nevertheless, despite the pain, the Sister feels it is helpful for people to speak of these things. “The people tell me how they feel. They share their stories with me, some in a loud voice. I help them to express their pain and find some comfort”. Sr. Maria is a nurse. She came to the camp to work in public health and hygiene but she later realised people needed to tell their stories about what they went through. It was this that made Sr. Maria decide to spend time listening to them.

Nigerian refugees who crossed the border last week seek shelter in the Cameroonian town of Goura, after fleeing violence in Rann. (UNHCR/Xavier Bourgois).

Walking together among the huts, Sr. Maria points out Tabitha. She and her family fled from Ngoshe village. We approach her and soon she tells us what happened: “One evening in the village we were celebrating. The atmosphere was exciting and people came from other nearby villages. Then we heard the sound of cars and motorbikes. We thought they had come for the celebration but suddenly they began shooting. Everyone ran away. I saw several people falling and there was blood everywhere. So much blood!”
Tabitha managed to escape with her husband and her eight children, including week-old twins. As she was fleeing, she saw the jihadists shooting her brother. She saw many people she knew dying. All the inhabitants of the village fled to the mountains. After walking for three days, they crossed the border into Cameroon.
“During our escape, Andrawus, one of the twins, got sick and died a few days later “, Tabitha tells us. The family was received into a camp for refugees. “When we saw many people getting sick and dying in the camp, we decided to return here to Yola, in Nigeria “, she added.

Catholic Bishop of Yola DIocese, Stephen Mamza (Photo SWN).

Since that time, I stayed in the town – together with eighty-five families who cannot return to their home villages. The Church helps them with food and some of them find occasional paid work, especially in the fields. Tabitha gazes at her children playing. She thinks of her home and the friends she will never see again. She wonders why they have had to suffer so much. Under a plastic tent, Augustin is cooking some beans he has just brought from his garden. His wife, Rebecca, has her baby daughter Guada in her arms. The child is only a few weeks old and is the pride of her parents. They have seven children. When Boko Haram attacked their village of Dar in 2014, their children were alone at home with a relative. Augustin was sick in hospital at Michika, where his wife Rebecca was visiting him.Rebecca recounts: “That was the time when Boko Haram was not burning down the villages. My father-in-law heard of the attack and how the jihadists were planning to take away the women and children to the Sambisa forest. “One night, he carefully approached the hut where the children were hiding and took them away. They walked for days on end.” Rebecca continues: “We heard of the attack on the village and we didn’t know if the children were still alive. Our anxiety went on but after some days we heard they were alive. Two weeks later, they arrived here in Yola”.

Women and girls are the ones who suffer most: even the very young are kidnapped and forced into marriage with the jihadists. In April 2014, the kidnapping of 276 girl students in Chibok scandalised the whole world. Some of them were released in October 2016. In 2018, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girl students in the town of Dapchi, in Yobe state. They were released after secret negotiations with the government and a probable payment of a large sum of money. The most recent incident was in December when armed men burst into a secondary school for boys in Kankara, in Katsina state, in the north. They abducted a large number of students. The local media spoke of 600 boys kidnapped. They were almost all released a few days later.
Nobody knows exactly how many people have been kidnapped or killed in recent years since the Nigerian government prefers not to speak of kidnappings or murders. “There are no statistics”, explains Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja.
“We find out about robberies and abductions only when we are informed by our people in the rural communities when they raise the alarm. Often, we know neither who they are nor where they are going.”

“We have no peace…”
Augustin, 42, worked as a public health worker before he had to flee. “I would really like to study but the Boko Haram business has spoiled all my plans. We cannot do what we want with our lives”,  Augustin quietly tells us. Of course, he would like to go back home. “But we cannot do that. Each time the terrorists come, the soldiers drive them back into the bush but then they come back again and attack our villages.

The government is not doing enough to fight them. We are living in fear; we have no peace. There is no peace in our hearts. That is why we stay here. I hope we can find a safe place here”.Meanwhile, the Church is building houses for the families in a village community near Yola. Each home also has a piece of land to cultivate.“We hope to get one of those houses. I would like to cultivate a piece of ground there”, Augustin says. “Our children can go to school and make a future for themselves”. The Church has opened a school under a large tent.

Bettina Tiburzy/Kontinente
Photos: Hartmut Schwarzbach

 

 

 

Ghana. Living and dying in Agbogbloshie.

Agbogbloshie, in Accra, the capital of Ghana, is one of the largest waste dumps for electronic appliances in the world and the workplace of thousands of people who are daily exposed to some of the
most toxic substances resulting in premature death. We went
to see the dump.

Sule uses a hammer to strike what looks like an old engine spark plug. It is hard to tell one piece from another in the jumble of metal objects in front of him. A dismantled microwave oven, a steering wheel from a car, parts of a fan, wires of all sizes and colours, some metal tubes. They are all piled up on the ground that is blackened with ashes. Sule says he is fifteen. He wears jeans and a blue shirt stained, like his skin, with soot. “I have been working here for the past three years”, he says. “I make my living by selling spare parts for vehicles that have been thrown away. I know which parts can still be useful and can be sold for a little cash”.

It is very hot in Agbogbloshie, believed to be one of the largest ‘technological’ dumps in the world. It covers about two hectares and stands on the bank of the Korle River. It is like any other district of the Ghanaian capital, in a country of more than thirty million inhabitants, located on the Gulf of Guinea where 25% of the population live below the poverty level and 7% live in extreme poverty.
There is one big difference: here the hot air is mixed with a toxic cloud of grey dust and there is a strong smell of burned metal and plastic. Agbogbloshie smells of endless pollution.

Various studies carried out in recent decades confirm this. A Greenpeace study found that the samples they analysed contained several dangerous substances, some of which were highly toxic such as those containing lead, cadmium or antimony which were present in the soil in concentrations 100 times the normal level. Another report by the UN stated that the pollution of the water and the soil had completely destroyed all the biodiversity of the area in a matter of ten years.

Minimum wage
Sule is but one of 6,500 people working in Agbogbloshie – some estimated put the figure at 40,000, according to the season – and lives on the other side of the road in Old Fadama, a slum with about 100,000 people and known as Sodom and Gomorra due to the high level of crime. The people of the district are mostly from the north of the country.
The poverty level is worsening and drugs of all kinds are commonly sold there. It is a place where people are used to armed robbery, continual clashes with the police and military on the one hand and with criminals on the other.

There are no gaps between the mud-walled houses with tin roofs. “I can earn around 600 Cedri a month – about  95 Euro. It is not a bad wage but I have little or no choice in any case. This is my livelihood”, Sule says. In Ghana, the minimum wage is about two Euro per day and the young man is not far wrong; he is earning half as much again as a worker in some sectors, though he has to work ten hours a day, six days a week among the worn-out electric appliances. He is risking his life and knows it may be shorter than the average.
It is difficult to establish the source or quantity of all this electronic waste that ends up in Agbogbloshie. Despite the Basel Convention that forbids the export of electronic waste, the port of Tema receives dozens of containers of rubbish from the European Union under the guise of second-hand, reusable appliances. Much of it is also produced in the EU.

An exhaustive report by Euronews published in July 2019 analysed the commercial itinerary of this waste and stated that 85% of the electronic rubbish sent to Ghana came not only from Ghana itself but also from other West African countries.  The remaining 15% exported is not examined before leaving the European ports due to the enormous quantities of goods daily passing through them.”I estimate that around 80% of the goods exported to Africa are illegal. The Ghana port authorities say that 75% of the goods that enter the country do so as second-hand items.
The idea is that the local market should repair these appliances and try to sell them. Whatever cannot be sold is sent to Agbogbloshie”, stated Jim Puckett, executive director of the environmental watchdog Basel Action Network which in 2018 placed more than 300 GPS trackers in e-waste to track material coming from Europe.

Living without basic facilities
When asked who organises and controls everything in Agbogbloshie, they all say it is Idrisu Shaibu, a man in his sixties with a stubby beard, blackened teeth and a rough complexion. Today, Idrisu is wearing a white tunic and a kufi skull cap made of grey lace. He lives in a small shed at the entrance to the dump. He tells us: “We have many problems here. I think the worst of them is the smoke, black smoke that makes it very hard to breathe. The doctors tell us that all these chemicals cause serious illnesses like cancer”.

Official statistics show he is right beyond all doubt. For example, the probability of getting cancer due to inhaling arsenic is 70,000 times greater in Agbogbloshie than anywhere else in the world.  A study by the Chemicals Environmental Division of the Ghana Water Research Institute has discovered that as many as seven out of every hundred workers at the dump will contract cancer during their lives, something of a death sentence in a country with such a poor health service. Other epidemiological studies have shown a direct relationship between exposure to the metals commonly present in the area and various types of tumours, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, endometriosis, premature menopause and changes in the hormones of testosterone and the immune system.

Shaibu, who protests against the lack of attention Agbogbloshie receives from the local authorities knows that his living there could shorten his life. “We have one hospital, a small one set up by a German NGO, but it is not sufficient”, he says. He also says that the solution is not to criminalise the place or the business where so many people earn their living or the workers themselves. “This business started around 1975 and at first there were just a few of us. Over time, others came, especially people with no possessions. We are now an important sector of the economy of the country”, he continues. Of course, it is a sector that forms part of the 88% of the population of Ghana who live by working informally.
Idrisu Shaibu also emphasises how Agbogbloshie has such poor social services. Even a simple thing like attending school can be very difficult for the hundreds of children living there. According to the NGO Africa Education Watch, all the schools around the site are privately run and are mostly inaccessible to the residents. The organisation also stated that this leads to a premature end to the basic education of the children who see the electric waste as one of the few ways of earning a living.
From a distance, we watch Sule as he continues working with his hammer and chisel on that old spark plug, like all the other workers in Agbogbloshie, in the unrelenting heat. The air is slowly filled with a black cloud of thick smoke and the dusty ashes of nearby fires colour everything a dark grey.

Text and Photos: José Ignacio Martínez Rodríguez

The Energy Charter Treaty. A New Threat to Africa.

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an international treaty that came into force in the last decade of the last century.

The ECT is a multilateral investment agreement signed by more than 50 countries and its main objective is to ensure the protection of investors in the energy sector, especially transnational companies operating in coal, oil and gas extraction. The ECT allows investment companies to bring claims before private arbitration tribunals against countries whose governments change energy legislation and which may cause economic damage to investors.

A distorted origin. Although the origin of this treaty was to provide legal security to companies that decided to invest in Eastern European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall, today this treaty is turning
into a legal strategy, used by financial speculators to obtain
economic profitability.

So far, the countries harmed by the ECT have mainly been central and eastern European countries, but the new trend is to extend the scope of the treaty to new members, especially in Africa, where the ECT threaten to ruin the economic stability of these countries with lawsuits against their governments. Under the ECT, corporate investors would be able to sue governments only when their profit expectations are threatened. Thus, an improvised investment by a small company would legitimise that company to sue a state for millions of Euros.

The ECT on the margins of justice. The Energy Charter Treaty can be described as a variant of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), with the same aim of protecting investors, but applied to the energy sector. Civil society has publicly warned of the risks of ISDS for developing countries and expressed its opposition to the ISDS as it allows transnational companies to create a parallel justice system in which disputes between investors and states are settled in private arbitration courts. So far, the ECT agreements have been negotiated and implemented with a secrecy that has made them almost unnoticed
by civil society.

The ECT an economic threat to Africa. Currently Burundi, Eswatini and Mauritania are in the ratification process of the ECT, Uganda is waiting for the formal invitation to accede to the ECT and Kenya, Niger, Chad, Gambia, Nigeria, and Senegal are among the countries preparing their accession. The quiet progress in the expansion of ECT in Africa has called the attention of civil society.

The Energy Charter Treaty is promoted by extractive transnational companies in the energy sector (coal, gas and oil extraction) that seek to perpetuate their economic power and political influence, preventing political decisions to promote an energy transition to renewable energy sources in line with the Paris agreement (COP 21). These energy companies see political decisions promoting renewable energy sources as a threat to their economic interests and investments.

ECT prevents urgent climate action. The promotion of the ECT is completely contrary to the fight against climate change which limits the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. Fossil energy sources are the main cause of global warming and therefore their use should not be encouraged. Legal mechanisms should not be created to facilitate the continuation of this fossil fuel sector.

The fight against climate change must be guided by public policies that allow for the transformation of the energy sector. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy sources requires changes and adaptation of energy companies; and Governments should facilitate this transition. African countries require progressive adaptation to enable them to break their dependence on fossil fuels and thus join the committed fight against climate change.

The ECT, a continued colonisation. The continuation of the ECT would once again benefit the countries of the North, home to the main investors of fossil-based energy companies, and would economically harm those countries in Africa that are dependent on raw materials.

The ECT obliges the countries that sign the treaty to continue to maintain this dependence without giving them the option to promote new development policies that would give them self-governance over their natural resources. The treaty is a mechanism to maintain the economic and political dependence of African countries. The treaty makes them relinquish sovereignty over their natural wealth and forces them to settle their economic future in international bodies that are outside their judicial system.

Halting the spread of ECTs in Africa. Ending TCEs is a task of shared responsibility for governments in both Europe and Africa. EU governments require coherence in their sustainable development policies. The EU’s commitment to the Green Deal consistent with the energy transition is incompatible with the inclusion of the ECT in international treaties. That is why the EU’s will must be firm
in rejecting this treaty.

But governments in Africa also have a responsibility not to accept ECTs; both because of their negative economic consequences and because of their contribution to the fight against climate change. The future of economic development in Africa and the well-being of its people involves ending economic dependence on fossil fuels. This does not mean switching from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources, but requires integrating clean energy sources into the development of sustainable economic policies.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Music. Fatima Said. Enchanting Voice.

Capable, beautiful and full of positive energy, the Egyptian soprano Fatma Said with her formidable voice has won her place on the most prestigious lyrical venues.

Her success is also due to the efforts of her family who supported her every time the burden of prejudices and common places seemed to suggest she place her enchanting voice at the service of other schools of expression. This was true at least until her debut at La Scala in Milan in 2016. Today, Fatma is based in Berlin and tours the world, from Paris to the United States and performs with amazing naturalness, works ranging from Mozart to Berlioz, from Ravel to Mahler or Manuel De Falla. However, her heart is still in Egypt in Africa, and Egypt is in her blood and in her voice.

So much so that her recent debut solo album, El  Nour, ends with four Arabic pieces: “In the West, nobody seems to know this music; just as among my people the classics and opera are almost unknown”,  she said in a recent interview. “There is just one opera in Egypt; ‘Aida’ is a symbol even though very few have actually heard it. In Cairo, we have an Opera Theatre where countless performances of the Aida and folk or pop concerts are held. Nevertheless, there are also some new composers like Sherif Mohieldin, the author of Miramar, from the novel by Mahfuz. But the problem lies in the roots: there is a lack of musical education in the schools”.  Fortunately, music, especially Great Music, the sort that varies so smoothly from blues to classics, from jazz to multi-ethnic folk, will always find a path that leads from the ear to the heart.

Fatma was still a young girl when she had her first singing lesson. From then on, her ascent into the unknown world of the Bel Canto has been unstoppable, without ever ceasing to learn and explore. She does this with great humility but also with great human sensibility: a tendency that has led her to represent Egypt at Geneva on the World Day of Human Rights 2014, and three years later, to present her art in the suggestive surroundings of Luxor to promote the rights of children to education and dignity. There is no need to mention her work for women’s rights which won her the prize of the Egypt National Council for Women.
Her technique is corroborated by her passion and interpretative eclecticism which in recent years enabled her to dress in the costumes of Nannetta in Falstaff, of Clorinda in La Cenerentola and of Berta in the Barber of Seville.

Furthermore, in 2016, the BBC had already marked her out among the most promising of the new generation of lyrical singers; but it is clear that her consecration took place on the exclusive stage of La Scala, under the sword of Damocles wielded by the most demanding critics of Europe.  In 2020 Fatma’s performances have included a studio concert with the Bayrischer Rundfunk in Munich, recitals at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Wigmore Hall, and an appearance at Leeds Lieder. She will also be part of the annual Concert de Paris and the Festival de St. Denis.

Fatma has shared the stage with renowned musicians such as Leo Nucci, Rolando Villazón, Juan Diego Florez, Michael Schade and Jose Cura and performed recitals with clarinetist Sabine Meyer and pianists such as Malcom Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, David Fray and Joseph Middleton. “I feel so fortunate to work with all kinds of musicians from across the world, and to perform music by so many composers from all over world”, comments Fatma. “The thing that connects us is music. It is a commonality, and I love that in listening to live music, in a way we create a moment of peace together”.

Franz Coriasco
Open photo: Felix Broede

DR Congo. Giving dignity and independence.

The Daniel Comboni House of the Comboni Missionary Sisters is a structure that assists the social rehabilitation of young women so that they can manage their own lives independently and with dignity. We visited the House.

Daniel Comboni Social House is to be found in the Kimbondo quarter on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Originally, the Comboni Sisters wanted to open a hospitality centre for the women being released from Makala prison, to provide them with accommodation and help them to take their place again in society, but in the end, they decided to open a centre to provide all emarginated women with a place where they could manage their own lives independently and with dignity. Above all else, they wanted them to feel at home. In May 2018, the first group of women began their experience at Daniel Comboni Social House. “We did not want to call it a ‘centre’ because we wanted the women to feel they were part of a family and that this was their home as long as they lived here”, says the Italian Comboni Missionary Sister Giovanna Valbusa who, since 1977, has lived in Kinshasa, the capital, though she has been in the country since 1961.

At present, there are eight women living in the house, aged from 20 to 26 years. “The purpose of this house  – Sr Giovanna emphasises – is to help these women to get back on their feet and take control of their lives. On the one hand, we offer them the choice of learning a profession and, on the other, multidisciplinary support in line with the needs of each one. But it has to be understood that it is they who have the last word. If they let themselves go and do not help themselves, there is nothing we can do”. A stay in the House lasts a maximum of one year.
Daniel Comboni Social House offers the possibility of training courses: dressmaking, aesthetics and hairdressing. The students attend courses lasting six months, from Monday to Friday morning, at the Centre for Specialised Trades (CAMS), located not far from the House. In the view of the missionary Sister, the Centre has many advantages. “It is of a high standard and awards official certificates to those who pass the final exams; furthermore, it allows new students to enrol at the beginning of the month, which offers some flexibility in incorporating young women during the course of the year. Lastly, we prefer that they are not confined to the House but meet other people and socialise with them”.

Joelle, who is in the sixth month of her training, says: “The tailoring course has been a great help to me. One day, I would like to have a big house like this one to take in other people and help them as well”. Sara’s comment is almost identical: “I am very happy to be able to help my family, my children and other women”.
Apart from their studies, the young women devote their time to making small hand-made objects such as purses and handbags the sale of which helps to meet the running costs of the house. Other afternoons are spent in the garden where they learn to cook or have lessons in life education and disease prevention. In addition, three times a week, according to their education level, they have lessons in literacy and French.
The staff of the Centre is composed of two Comboni Sisters and two social educators. Ruth is one of these and she teaches reading and writing. She tells us: “They differ from one to another and so we work in two groups. There are those who cannot read or write and find it difficult to hold a pen in their hands. These need special attention but I feel that most of them really want to learn and take charge of their own lives. I have been working with this project from the beginning and I have seen the great progress these girls make in a few short months”.

Sr Giovanna says: “The message we want to get across is that we mustn’t waste time. They have to get organised responsibly so as to see to their training and prepare for their future”. The missionary Sister continues: “We also help them in their faith, teaching them how to pray and to live in the presence of God, resolving their problems in the serenity of reflection. We also help them to express their emotions through the use of films, games, birthday celebrations. These are just ordinary but very necessary things for them. To sum up, we try to create the family atmosphere that many of them have never known so that they can bring out the best in themselves”.
One of the tasks of the missionary Sisters is to find tailoring shops and beauty parlours so that the girls can have a professional experience of work for three months before setting up their own businesses. The Sisters also help them to set up their own independent businesses. “The results are encouraging”, Sister Giovanna adds “and we have a number of girls who have started working independently and we know that they will pass on to others all they learned here”.

Enrique Bayo

 

Cyril Ramaphosa and the struggle for reform in South Africa.

Respected by public opinion and the international community, Ramaphosa has to fight against the various factions and groups within the ANC. The economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic  are hampering further reform efforts.

It is now just over three years since Cyril Ramaphosa became president of South Africa, taking over from Jacob Zuma, whose nine years in office were marked by corruption, the weakening of important state institutions, and a general disrespect for the rule of law and for constitutional values.
Mr Ramaphosa’s election, first as head of the African National Congress (ANC) in December 2017, and then as national president three months later, was widely welcomed. He has a reputation for integrity and moderation, and is a careful and constructive political operator. He is also a highly intelligent and articulate person; indeed, when Nelson Mandela retired in 1999, it was his personal wish that Mr Ramaphosa should be his successor.

Former South African president Jacob Zuma.

If Mr Mandela’s wish had been honoured, Mr Ramaphosa would have taken over a fairly united governing party, a state with relatively strong democratic institutions, and an economy that was performing solidly, if not spectacularly. Instead, nearly 20 years later, he came to power as the head of a deeply divided and corrupted party, and with the economy continually faltering on the edge of recession.
Even though the ANC won 57 per cent of the vote in the last election (2019), giving it an outright majority in Parliament, Mr Ramaphosa governs like someone in charge of a very unstable coalition. He continually has to keep different groups and constituencies happy – but these groups are the factions in his own party, rather than rivals from other parties.

No control of the ANC
Essentially, the internal battle in the ANC is between those who see politics as a public service, and who want to build the country, and those who see it as a route to self-enrichment and acquisition. Jacob Zuma epitomised the latter tendency, and he and his supporters still exert a strong influence in the structures and branches of the party, most importantly the national executive committee of about 80 people, and the ‘top six’ group of office bearers. Mr Ramaphosa has a small and uncertain majority support among the 80, but only one other of the top six is a strong ally. Two are clearly against him, coming from the Zuma camp, and the remaining two are likely to swing opportunistically to whichever faction is in the ascendancy.

The logo of  African National Congress.

From all this it can be seen that President Ramaphosa has had a hard time in his attempts to reform the ANC and to undo the damage caused by his predecessor. However, he has succeeded in some significant ways. One of his first steps was to appoint new heads to many of the state institutions that had been undermined by Mr Zuma; for example, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Revenue Service and the Police Service. He also instituted independent commissions of enquiry, led by judges, to examine numerous allegations of corruption and governance failures. These are now beginning to bear fruit, and a number of criminal prosecutions have been launched.
But Mr Ramaphosa has also managed to change the overall approach of government. There is a much greater sense of accountability, and of respect for the Constitution and for democratic institutions. Most importantly, perhaps, he has shown a determination to end the practice of ‘state capture’ whereby corrupt private interests, working with politicians and government officials, were able to take control of state bodies, including major state-owned companies, and exploit them for financial gain.Regrettably, apart from the internal political problems described above, two other factors have hampered Mr Ramaphosa’s efforts – the country’s weak economy and, of course, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Poverty and inequality
For many years South Africa’s economic growth has not matched its population growth. The unemployment rate has risen steadily and is now over 30 per cent. Government debt, although still relatively low by international standards, has increased significantly and the tax authorities, weakened by state capture, have not brought in as much revenue as they should.
All this makes it difficult for the government to meet its spending targets in areas such as health, housing, education, land-reform, and social welfare. Poverty and inequality remain serious problems, leading to outbreaks of social unrest, and young people, especially, are questioning whether democratic politics offers them any hope for a better future.

Soweto Township.

Given this already difficult political-economic context, the COVID-19 pandemic constituted yet another difficult challenge for Mr Ramaphosa and his government. Not only was the economy effectively shut down for most of 2020, but money had to be found to pay for increased social grants, and to equip the health sector to cope with tens of thousands of victims of the disease.
To his credit, Mr Ramaphosa has shown great leadership qualities during this crisis. He comes across as calm and in control of the situation. He regularly addresses the nation on television and radio, communicating the seriousness of the situation, but also giving reassurances that the authorities are managing it competently. Most medical experts believe that the government has worked effectively and proactively to deal with the virus, and there has been good co-operation between the state health authorities and the country’s strong private health sector.

The ‘anti-Ramaphosa’ faction
South African presidents are limited to two full terms in office; this means that Mr Ramaphosa could be president up to 2029, since his first full term began only with the general election of May 2019.
If it was certain that he would serve for such a long period, we could be confident that he would achieve many of the most needed political reforms, and perhaps also that he would be able to make significant economic progress.

Unfortunately, there is no such certainty. The ‘anti-Ramaphosa’ faction in the ANC is fighting very hard to undermine his efforts to build clean and accountable government. Many of this faction’s leaders know that, if Ramaphosa succeeds, they will go to jail for their corrupt dealings. Others in the more junior ranks of the party resent the fact that they have not yet had the opportunity to fill their pockets; for them, a political career is a way to become wealthy and they have no interest in supporting a leader who promotes the politics of service.
In December next year the ANC will hold its five-yearly national conference, at which the party’s leadership is elected. In 2017, Mr Ramaphosa won by a very narrow margin. Despite his many achievements, and despite his great personal popularity across all sectors of the population, there is no guarantee whatsoever that he will win again.  The next 20 months could be perhaps the most crucial in South Africa’s democratic history.

Mike Pothier      

 

 

DR.Congo/Nigeria/Ghana. Towards new life.

On a hill in the city of Bukavu in the south of the DR Congo, a centre has been built to take in girls accused of witchcraft. In the deep south of Nigeria, a Sister fights against ancient beliefs and in a rural diocese of Ghana, the Church works to give hope to many children.

Her face is serene and smiling as she caresses one of the little girls she looks after at the Ek’abana house on one of the hills of Bukavu, in the Kivu region in the south of the country.
The centre has become a place of refuge for many little women who one day were called witches. Some are only five, some about twelve or older. Some have been beaten, others thrown out of their homes and others were subjected to attempted lynching. Sr. Natalina takes all of them in and listens to them. Every day, these little girls present a problem whether great or small to which she gives a solution, especially by encouraging, urging, calming and reassuring them. She is aware that her task is to bind up their broken hearts. Ek’abana has two meanings in the Bashi language: ‘The home of the children’ and ‘The children have a home’. Natalina Isella is a seventy-year-old Italian Sister who has spent more than forty years in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sr. Natalina says: “Sorcery is a way of finding an explanation for a life of suffering. Of course, it is not the only explanation. There is also the break-up of families and the child of a previous marriage of the husband or wife is often accused; there are also the little ones born on the roads from extremely poor and girls who have been raped; ignorance, too, makes people accuse the neighbour’s girl of causing some illness or death. Most serious of all, there are small sects led by greedy pastors who mix Christianity with a lot of superstition and presumed spiritual powers. Behind these accusations of sorcery, there is almost always one of those fake saints”.
They have deep wounds, these little girls. They have been told: “It was you who killed your mother”; “It was you who made your playmates sick”. They are treated like the condemned and thrown out onto the street.
What takes place in the minds and hearts of little girls when they are called sorcerers? In years to come, will they ever forget such a traumatic experience? Sr. Natalina says: “These are the questions that we must ask ourselves when we are faced with these children and hear the stories they cannot tell without being overcome with emotion.”
Sr. Natalina is a member of the Women Disciples of the Crucified, a small religious Institute of the diocese of Milan founded by Barnabite Gaetano Barbieri in 1964. She first came to the Congo in 1976. First, she used to look after poor families, and then she took care of former child-soldiers, after which she worked in a literacy programme for women.  The missionary Sister recalls: “It was 22 January 2002 when they brought me a group of nine homeless girls accused of witchcraft. What could I do? Leave them to sleep on a piece of cardboard? I took them in and began this work of mine. We had a small house and we arranged to be what we now call Ek’abana. In a matter of a few months, thirty more girls came to us: it was like an explosion”.

Today Ek’abana has about fifteen girl residents. Their number changes continually since their stay here is just the first of many stages on the long road to recovery. Each of them needs a family and each one is a particular case: some need to restore relations with their parents and siblings while others need to find grandmothers, aunts or cousins to take care of them. They need to go to school and learn a trade. In the past nineteen years, more than 450 girls have passed through Ek’abana and are now enjoying a ‘normal’ life. The house is also home to about twenty tiny unfortunate infants who were abandoned or left as orphans.
The tiny but tenacious missionary Sister has created a close-knit network of solidarity which provides the resources not only for Ek’abana but also a group of social workers who accompany the girls in their homes and collaborate with the police to sensitise the population against violence, abuses and accusations of witchcraft against minors.

Nigeria. A nun cares for abandoned children labelled as witches
Three years after taking in the little girl Inimffon and her younger brother, Sister Matylda Iyang finally heard from the mother who had abandoned them.
“Their mother came back and told me that she (Inimffon) and her younger sibling are witches, asking me to throw them out of the convent”, said Sr. Iyang, who runs the Mother Charles Walker Children Home at the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus convent. Such an accusation is not new to Sister Iyang.

Since opening the home in 2007, Sr. Iyang has cared for dozens of malnourished and homeless children from the streets of Uyo, the state capital of Akwa Ibom, in South Nigeria; many of them had family who believed they were witches. Witch profiling and the abandoning of children are common on the streets of Akwa Ibom.
If a man remarries, Sr. Iyang said, the new wife may be intolerant of the child’s attitude after being married to the widower, and as such, will throw the child out of the house.
“To achieve this, she would accuse him or her of being a witch”, Sr. Iyang continued. “That’s why you can find many children in the streets and when you ask them, they will say it’s their stepmother who drove them out of the house”.

She said poverty and teenage pregnancy can also force children into the street. At the Mother Charles Walker Children Home, where most of the children are sheltered and sent to school on scholarship, Sr. Iyang demonstrates the Catholic Church’s commitment to protecting child rights. She said most of the malnourished youngsters the order receives are those who lost their mother during childbirth “and their families bring them to us for care”. One of the important activities for Sr. Iyang is tracing and reunification. The process begins with parental verification by gathering information about each child and their location prior to separation. With the information in hand, an investigator drives to the child’s home village to verify what has been learned.
The process involves community chiefs, elders and religious and traditional leaders to ensure that each child is properly integrated and accepted in the community. If that fails, a child will be placed in the adoption protocol under government supervision.
Since opening the Mother Charles Walker Children Home in 2007, Sr. Iyang and the staff have cared for about 120 children. About 74 have been reunited with their families, she said.
“We now have 46 left with us”, she said, “hoping that their families will one day pick them up or that they will have foster parents”.

 Ghana. A new chance at life
“I was about four or five … I came here because I was accused of witchcraft and I was condemned by my family and my community”, said Sarah, aged 12. When Sarah was four years old, she was wrongly implicated in the deaths of fifteen people in her community, simply because she had a speech impediment. In accordance with local customs in parts of northern Ghana, some people in Sarah’s community believed the little girl to be a ‘spirit child’. Under these customs, any child born with a disability or whose mother dies during their birth may be considered a bad omen, and their lives placed at risk.

Many in Sarah’s community, including her own family, became furious at her inability or unwillingness to speak and defend herself against the allegations, casting her out and threatening to kill her.
Thankfully, Sister Stan Therese Mumuni and the local Church were made aware of the imminent danger Sarah was in. Sister Stan recalls fighting – almost physically – to save Sarah from a terrible fate and give her a new chance at life.”When a child is born with a physical defect, they think it is a child with an evil spirit, and they have to get rid of such children; and we say that this cannot be done”, explained Bishop Vincent Sowa of Yendi. To rescue children from this practice, the diocese supports the Nazareth Home, run by Sister Therese Stan.

“These children have a wide variety of disabilities: malformations, blindness, Down syndrome, syphilis. All these children have been accused of witchcraft and have been thrown out of their communities and families, and have been threatened with death”, explained Sister Stan. The home rescues these children and takes full responsibility for them.Sister Stan has dedicated the last decade to running the Nazareth Home for God’s Children in the Diocese of Yendi in Ghana, a haven where children like Sarah are given shelter, nutritious meals, healthcare and education as well as unconditional love.
At the Nazareth Home for God’s Children, the children receive quality education so that they may one day gain employment and provide for themselves. Sister Stan’s dream is that one day they will return to their home communities and show how the love and support of the Church has empowered them to develop and reach their goals.

Rose Mary Mutesa

 

 

 

 

Cote d’Ivoire. Old and new challenges.

Former President Laurent Gbagbo has received the green light to take back his role on the political scene of Cote d’Ivoire.
Apparently, he has now the possibility to engage again in the fight for predominance that he has been fighting for thirty years. A fight that risks tearing the country apart.

On 31st March 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC, headed on this occasion by a Nigerian judge, Chile Eboe-Usuji) definitively acquitted Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé, one of his ministers. They had been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the civil war fought in Cote d’Ivoire in 2010-2011.

Laurent Gbagbo, the former President of Côte d’Ivoire.

After he lost the presidential election in 2010, Gbagbo refused to concede defeat and resisted. He was chased by rebel groups that supported the winner of the election, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, with the help of foreign troops (primarily French) in April 2011. Gbagbo and Blé Goudé were brought to justice in front of the ICC in The Hague. But the prosecution team, led by a Gambian judge, Fatou Bensouda, did not succeed in proving they were guilty. They had been acquitted for the first time in 2019, but the prosecutor had asked for another trial.
Gbagbo’s former wife, Simone, who was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Cote d’Ivoire, was also acquitted in 2017 before an amnesty in 2018.
There is an ongoing debate regarding Bensouda’s responsibility, her strategy, and the structural weaknesses of the prosecution.
But the political consequences of the March 2021 sentence seem quite clear: Gbagbo can go back to Cote d’Ivoire. And this can have a deep impact on the politics of the African country.
The former President still enjoys some popular support even if his party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), split due to the quarrel between Gbagbo’s supporters, who wanted to boycott any political process until his liberation, and the wing led by Pascal Affi N’Guessan, who challenged Ouattara by participating in elections. The two wings still did not become reconciled, and in the 2021 political elections, they competed separately. Gbagbo’s supporters ran as Ensemble pour la Démocratie et la Souveraineté (EDS) while their former partners ran as FPI. They won 8 and 2 seats respectively.

The danger of ivoirité
Gbagbo has been the main actor on the Ivorian political scene since the ‘90s. What happened in Ivorian politics since the death of the founding father of the republic Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993 can be synthesized as a turf war between Ouattara, Henri Konan Bédié (leader of the Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire – Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, PDCI-RDA) and Gbagbo.

President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara.

These three men have been fighting for power for thirty years. Often, two of them would join forces against the third. At the moment, Bédié and Gbagbo are allied against Ouattara who was confirmed in 2015 and 2020. They created a joint list for the 2021 election that gained 50 seats, in addition to the seats gained by their respective parties. When Ouattara and Gbagbo clashed after the 2010 presidential elections (for some months the country had formally two heads of state), Bédié supported Ouattara against Gbagbo.
This fight has had a deep impact not only on the political scene but also on Ivorian society in general. The rivalry is also rooted in ethnicity, with cleavages between the ethnic groups living in the North and those based in the South. The first were basically excluded from power within the institutions (especially the armed forces) before Ouattara’s ascent to power. The ethnic factions, that date back to colonial times and Houphouet-Boigny’s policies, degenerated in the ‘90s when Bédié introduced the idea of “ivoirité” (that can be translated as “the characteristic of being Ivorian”) to beat Ouattara. With this new concept, to sum up, there was a distinction within the country between the “real Ivorians” and those who could not claim this right. The “real Ivorians” were identified basically with the ethnic groups living in the south while the descendants of the groups that migrated from the North, especially from the territory that is now part of Burkina Faso (but which was a French colony like Cote d’Ivoire), were considered more or less as permanent strangers.

The age gap
Another fracture exists between the leadership and the young generation. In Cote d’Ivoire, 60% of the population is under 25, while Ouattara is 79 years old, Bédié 86 and Gbagbo 75. In the last years, two younger leaders emerged, Hamed Bakayoko and Guillaume Soro, but things did not go well for them. Bakayoko was a member of Ouattara’s circle that succeeded in emerging as a leader with a clear personality. Due to his flamboyant style, he had broad support within the young. But he was a smart politician that had the ability and the connections to reach out to opponents in times of political tension.
In July 2020, Ouattara chose him as a Prime Minister and some analysts saw him as a possible successor to the head of state. But he died of cancer at 56 in March 2021.

Guillaume Soro was the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire from April 2007 to March 2012.

Guillaume Soro was the political leader of the rebel forces who brought Ouattara to power in 2011. He was subsequently appointed first Prime Minister and then President of the National Assembly. But he became a possible rival to Ouattara and was forced to leave the country. He is 48 years old and has joined the opposition.
At this moment Ouattara’s power seems to be sound. He controls the state apparatus and his party, the Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RHDP), has a majority in the National Assembly. But within his front, there are rivalries, first of all about who will be Ouattara’s successor. There were tensions between Bakayoko and older members of the party and when he was Prime Minister, Bakayoko was flanked by Patrick Achi who was put in that place by Ouattara presumably to control him. After Bakayoko’s death, Achi (who is 65) became premier. The president had chosen Amadou Gon Coulibaly as his successor at the 2020 presidential elections. But Coulibaly died in 2020 and Ouattara chose to run again. So, the issue of the succession to Ouattara is still open.

Past and future
Gbagbo’s acquittal creates problems on the Cote d’Ivoire political scene and does not provide answers to such questions as who is responsible for the atrocities committed during the civil war. These facts are not fake news debunked by the judges. According to the ICC, Gbagbo did not commit them. Or rather, there is no convincing evidence of that. So, who did commit them? And what about the allegations of atrocities made by Gbagbo’s supporters against Ouattara’s forces?

It seems that at this moment the answers to these questions will be set aside to favour some sort of political agreement between the three major political leaders. But they presumably will be ready to break that agreement and to shift from one side to the other if it suits them. The enemy of today can become the ally of tomorrow, so it is better not to raise problematic issues. However, these enduring issues may exacerbate tensions and bring about political and ethnic violence.

Andrea Carbonari

Somalia. Tensions rise with Kenya over offshore oil-rich areas.

The weakness of Somalia’s state has incited neighbours to make steps to tap its maritime resources in search of oil and fishing grounds, adding to other tensions which create a dangerous climate.

The chaos that reigned in Somalia after Siad Barre’s overthrowal in 1991 has encouraged predators to take advantage of the weaknesses of the Somalian state to defend its natural resources. Until recently, Somalis accepted this fait accompli. But things changed in 2014, when the Mogadishu authorities filed a complaint to the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the maritime boundary with Kenya, accusing Kenya of encroaching on its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). As a result, Somalia says it is deprived from an area of some 160,000 sq km or 62,000 square miles which hosts lucrative fishing grounds and possibly, huge oil resources.

Kenyans consider that since the colonial period the border line runs alongside a parallel to the line of latitude to the East, which goes through the Lamu archipelago and continues inside the Indian Ocean. Somalis argue that the border must be equidistant from both sides of the coastline and must be the continuation of the terrestrial border and seem determined to boast from what they consider their riches.
In 2019, the Mogadishu government decided to auction oil blocks in the disputed waters at an oil conference in London, organised by the British prospection company Spectrum Geo which conducted a 2D offshore seismic survey in the disputed area. Such decision infuriated Kenya which fears to lose 26 per cent of its EEZ and 85 per cent of the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles limit.
Just before the date of the hearings at the ICJ, Kenya’s Attorney General Kihara Kariuki informed the Court, on the 17 March that the Kenyan authorities would not take part in oral submissions in The Hague. Kenya argued that the case should be delayed while it briefed a new legal team. It also cited the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to postpone the hearings and also objected to the presence on the ICJ panel of a Somali judge, which according to Nairobi should recuse himself.  Based on international maritime law, the ICJ is expected to rule in Somalia’s favour, guess observers. “Possibly the Kenyans withdrew also because of an expectation that they might just lose,” told the political scientist Stig Jarle Hansen, from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, in an interview with the Deutsche Welle radio.

Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) and Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmaajo”, president of Somalia. (Credit: thebrief.co.ke).

The court’s president, Judge Joan Donoghue, regretted Kenya’s decision not to participate in the oral proceedings and the ICJ ruled that the case should be heard virtually. Somalia was thus allowed to submit its final conclusions on the 18 March 2020. On that occasion, Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled said: “We hoped that it would be possible to settle our dispute with Kenya bilaterally, through negotiations. Unfortunately, that proved impossible”.
Then, on behalf of Somalia, the American Attorney Paul Reichler, stressed that the parallel of latitude proposed by Kenya as the common maritime border results from no known or recognized, or judicially sanctioned, method of delimitation, and fails to produce the equitable boundary that the law requires. In contrast, the equidistance line results from the standard process which the Court has regularly employed in the delimitation of maritime boundaries, he argued.
His British colleague, Edward Craven urged therefore the ICJ to “declare that Kenya, by its conduct in the disputed area, has violated its international obligations and is responsible under international law to make full reparation to Somalia”.
The stakes are considerable. Kenya argues that changing the boundary as Somalia demands would mean the loss of crucial fishing areas. About 90% of the 150,000 inhabitants of the Lamu county depend on fishing. According to Nairobi, the loss of this maritime territory would mean a 50 percent loss of the fishing ground.

But the major stake is oil. The Somalia government is considering to award 15 blocks in a licensing round this year. Seismic data acquired by the Norwegian company TGS estimated that the resources of the Somali basin may reach 30 billion barrels or the equivalent of the current Nigerian production during 40 years! The existence of such bonanza is known to British Petroleum (BP) which carried onshore and offshore explorations in Somalia before the ousting of President Barre.
Somalia’s intentions to auction these oil blocks during an oil and gas conference organised n London in February 2019, increased tensions between both neighbours. After the conference, Kenya recalled its ambassador to Somalia and asked the Somali ambassador in Nairobi to leave the country for consultations.

Fish market in Mogadishu. (Photo: AMISOM).

There is also irritation in Mogadishu where authorities resent the fact that Kenya has already awarded earlier three oil and gas blocks in the disputed area to Italy’s oil major ENI. Other players are joining the scramble. One is Norway whose company Statoil is at odds with Kenya since its expulsion from exploration plans in 2012. The French major Total has been offered a block by Kenya in the disputed maritime zone. The Somalian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources also agreed on a roadmap with Shell and ExxonMobil in 2020 to exploit offshore oil resources and convert a concession to a production sharing agreement.
Somalia’s lawyers complained at the ICJ that Kenya violated Somalia’s rights by authorising oil firms to explore fossil fuels in the same area and awarded oil blocks to at least five oil companies. According to the British lawyer Edward Craven, Kenya accepted that in 2007 the oil company Woodside drilled a deep-water well on Somalia’s side of the equidistance line and concluded that Kenya must annul such concession.
On top of these grievances, the maritime boundary dispute is particularly difficult to settle because of other bones of contention. Theoretically, both countries are allies against the al-Shabab Islamist group, which controls larges rural areas in Somalia and carries out attacks in Kenya. But in December 2020, Somalia accused Kenya of interfering in its internal affairs and severed diplomatic ties – resulting in a mutual recall of ambassadors after Kenya’s red-carpet reception of the self-declared Somaliland’s president.

Aerial view of a Kenyan Navy launch just off the coast of the Somali port city of Kismayo.

Somalia also accuses Kenya of backing the administration of the Jubaland regional state against the federal government whose President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed aka “Farmaj” wants to centralise power and remove Jubaland’s President Ahmed Mohamed Islam, aka “Madobe”. Mogadishu has also accused Kenya to have interfered in the 2019 election in Jubbaland. There were even clashes at the time between the Mogadishu and Jubaland troops, backed respectively by Ethiopian and Kenyan soldiers. Eventually, Madobe, was re-elected. The federal government immediately nullified the poll. But Kenya continued to support Madobe who reneged on the September 2020 election agreement. Then, in December 2020, Mogadishu also deployed troops at the border of both countries
The maritime dispute adds to this bitterness. On the 19 March 2021, Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said: “The government and people of Kenya feel betrayed that Somalia had brought the case before the ICJ after repudiating a maritime boundary that it had consented to for over 35 years”. “Somalia has to normalize its relations with Kenya before it can engage on any platform anywhere in the world with any person and or agent of Kenya through any proxy,” added the Kenya Foreign Ministry. Mediation attempts failed last March after a Djiboutian fact-finding mission sent on behalf of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGGAD), concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to support Somalia’s claims of Kenyan interference. In the end, Somalia rejected the mission’s conclusions claiming that they weren’t impartial.

Young men look on as they walk down a street in the centre of the port city of Kismayo, southern Somalia.

To make things even more complicate, all these disputes and tensions coincide with the withdrawal from the country, last January of the US forces which supported the troops of the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in line with former President Donald Trump’s order. Such withdrawal raises concern both in Mogadishu and in Nairobi. Indeed, in Somalia, U.S. troops’ drone strikes and other operations against al-Shabaab had managed to disrupt significantly jihadist activities. But as showed an attack of a Mogadishu hotel on January 31, when the group killed at least five people, including a former Somali army commander and two civilians, the jihadist organisation remains resilient.
Kenyan Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Macharia Kamau expressed also concern that the U.S withdrawal might create conditions for the resurgence of al-Shabaab in the areas from where it had been retreating. In such gloomy context, Somalia sent however a signal of compromise. At the ICJ hearing, on the 18 March, its representatives said that Mogadishu was seeking “remedies” for any future boundary dispute and added that it would not necessarily demand compensation from previous violations. Yet, cynics point out that it may take years for the ICJ to rule on the maritime dispute and that it has no power to enforce its rulings.

François Misser

Mexico. Weaving culture.

Within the priceless cultural heritage that is preserved among the Indian peoples of Mexico and includes such important areas as language, rites and world views, pride of place goes to the production of textiles. Textile traditions characteristically reflect extraordinary cultural diversity. A journey among the indigenous peoples of some regions to learn about their rich textile culture.

Chiapas is one of the states of the Mexican republic that has the highest percentage of indigenous people. Tzeltals, Tzotzils and Tojolabals speak languages of the Maya family. Among the Maya of the Highlands, clothing is still an element of cultural identification. In the different villages, items of clothing are produced that have particular characteristics – mainly in the matter of colour and design – which enable those who wear them to show they are different from other members of the same ethnic group.

The validity of the original meaning of the characteristics of the cloth which functions as an identifying sign, has led to the preservation of ancestral techniques among the weavers of the Maya of the Highlands in the manufacture of cloth itself as well as in decorative motifs and last but not least, in their meaning. This does not mean that the weaving tradition of this region was not transformed by the conquest, since the coming of the Spaniards brought with it some raw material such as wool, more suitable to the climatic conditions. Today, in a large number of localities, traditional clothes are produced such as huipiles, belts and capes, as well as other items of western origin such as blouses and shawls and articles like tablecloths, carpets and satchels.

A good proportion of products are woven using the strap loom, with various embroidered or brocaded motifs. Cotton thread is usually used though some areas are distinguished by their use of wool. An important characteristic of the textiles of this region is the sort of decoration used which derives from a view of the world and its inhabitants which frequently predates the Spanish epoch. Among the elements that are found in the textiles of the Highland Mayas are: diamonds, toads, fields of grain and flowers, especially bromeliads. Other motifs represent the sky and the Sun, whose symbol is the butterfly, corn and cornfields.

Oaxaca. Great variety.
No other region possesses the ethnic riches that characterise Oaxaca. In this harsh and diversified territory – which also includes parts of Guerrero as well as the actual state of Oaxaca – there live the Amuzgos, Chatinos, Chinantecs, Cuicatecs, Huaves, Mazatecs, Mixes, Mix-Tecs, Tecuates, Tlapanecs, Triques and the Zapotecs. This richness gives rise to a vast array of cultural expressions, including the textile tradition. Among the characteristics that render the textile production in the Oaxaca region one of the best known in Mexico is its great variety: every region has its distinct attributes and it is believed that there are 300 different items of clothing woven in cotton, wool or silk.

Women’s clothing usually consists of a huipile (a straight, sleeveless shirt), which may vary in length: down below the knee among the Zapotecs and the Mistis of the northern uplands and some Mixtecos; above the knee among the Mazateks and the Chinantecs and also to be found among the Zapotecs of the isthmus. The clothing is completed by a skirt wound round the body from the waist down, of different lengths; the Tehuan women wear long, broad skirts.
Another characteristic element is the unchanging method of production that goes back to pre-Hispanic times.

There are many communities where materials are woven on a backstrap loom and in some of them the spinning wheel is still used to make thread. There are communities in which natural dyes – made from cochineals, indigo and the purpura snail – are still used to colour cloth. In general, the textiles of these regions are decorated splendidly with embroidery showing various motifs, of which some are clearly pre-Hispanic and connected with the indigenous world view.

Nahuas. Trending towards urban dress
This is the largest indigenous group in Mexico: there are almost a million and a half Nahuas-speaking people scattered in various regions. Even though these groups have their language as a common characteristic, it is true to say that their specific cultural expressions vary considerably, based mainly on their post-conquest history.
While the Nahuas in regions such as Mexico City are identified only by their language and some social customs, those in more remote regions, such as Guerrero and Puebla, have preserved a broader array of indigenous cultural elements.

Nahua woman. (Photo: Pueblos indígenas.com)

One of these is the production of textiles. The proximity of many Nahua towns to the large cities caused them to adopt the clothes (shirt and trousers) that the Catholic missionaries considered more modest than the old male loincloth. Today, the Nahuas wear factory-made clothes like all city dwellers. Only in remote places do they wear, with variations, colonial dress. Women’s pre-Hispanic dress was more within the missionary rules and this is why it was perpetuated with fewer changes: a loose skirt, gathered in at the waist, covers the lower part of the body. Above it they also wear a rather long huipile or a cape (quechquémitl).

Since the women would often remove their huipile or quechquémitl at home, from colonial times, long or short-sleeved blouses were adopted which had elaborate embroidery around the neck. Nahua women demonstrate their art and manual ability by making these items of clothing. In Nahua localities where textiles are produced, it is not uncommon to find belt looms and techniques such as gauze, brocade and curved weaving. In some places, the threads are coloured with natural dyes such as indigo and red cochineals. The motifs that decorate these products are varied and reflect a view of the world, the environment and, in a certain way, the cultural transformations of the Nahua groups. They include geometric elements such as circles and rhombi, stars and suns, images of the sky, the wind and streams, maize and corn plants, animals such as serpents, jaguars and birds,
to name but a few.(P.S.)

China global leader in Rare-Earth elements.

China not has only reached 62% of the mineral production, around 90% of its overall subsequent refinement and 36,6% of world reserves of rare-earth elements. Chinese strategy for the control of rare metals has historically shown itself successful from the economic and geopolitical viewpoints. Somewhat less fiscally and environmentally.

1975-1990: how it started? China has been exporting products derived from processing rare-earth minerals since 1975, though in rather small quantities (150 tons). However, after a few years, in the early eighties, both Japan and the United States increased imports considerably. By 1985, Chinese production of chlorides and mixed oxides had increased to 10,000 tons per annum.
The Chinese government, through the National Rare-Earth Development and Application Leading Group, from 1975 to 1990, worked to encourage the development of the nascent mineral industry, especially exports. Exports then qualified for the refund of export duties which further stimulated production. Between 1985 and 1990, production almost doubled from 8,500 to 16,500 tons, with an annual increase of 14%.During this phase, on account of the strong competition between the large number of Chinese producers, prices fell drastically despite an increase in demand. Problems quickly ensued and illegal production became commonplace. Consequently, illegal products were added to the market (at lower prices and avoiding taxes while ignoring environmental standards). All this contributed to the lowering of prices.

Rare-earth mining in China. (Photo/VCG).

1991-1998: a totally Chinese niche. With the boom in the high-tech industry of the nineties, the Chinese government became aware of the importance of the advantage accumulated over the years in the processing of rare-earth minerals. The strategy of the People’s Republic then sought to exclude foreign investors from the sector and exercised rigid control over the issue of mining rights to companies. Only those most qualified and capable of following government norms would be given a free hand to mine and export rare-earth minerals. Furthermore, in 1991, China declared ion clays to be ‘minerals whose use is in the national interest’.  In this way it created an exclusive supply channel reserved only for state mining companies and a few others which became large multinationals close to the government of Peking.

Functional rare earth materials produced by Northern Rare Earth Group (NREG) is one of China’s six state-owned rare earth groups. They are used to make mobile phone screens. (Photo/ CGTN)

Despite numerous restrictions, during this phase the largest increase in overall production occurred (65,000 tons in 1998) with an annual increase of 22%. However, the government measures did not succeed in eliminating the phenomenon of illegal mining in southern China, a problem that exists to this day.
Numerous studies have sought to quantify the illegal component of rare-earth mining in China. Most of them estimate that abusive production since the year 2000 has ranged from 30% to 50% of the legal total registered and placed on the market by the Chinese government. With reference to the lateritic clay quarries (containing rare-earth minerals) it is calculated that illegal activity amounts to 40% of regulated extraction.
Those illegal businesses have an extremely significant impact on economy and ecology: they cause large-scale tax evasion as well as considerable environmental damage.
There is also an aspect of waste and mismanagement of natural resources: illegal mining, in general, extracts only high-quality reserves from the mines and then abandon them.

Rare earth in China’s Inner Mongolia (Photo/VCG)

1999-2009: protect the environment or the rare-earth minerals market? During the first years of the twenty-first century, rare-earth minerals came into their own, on a par with other productions, within the contrasts that characterise Chinese economic growth. For the Chinese government, economic growth dominated politics at least until the end of the millennium. Nevertheless, the problems of environmental sustainability were known (partly due to uncontrolled illegal mining). Peking then introduced export quotas (even a reduction of 40%, in 2009), production ceilings, and export duties. It then placed further restrictions on foreign investment in rare metals. It explained that the manoeuvre was required ‘for reasons of environmental protection and policies for the protection of the country’s natural resources’.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the JL MAG Rare-Earth Co Ltd in East China’s Jiangxi province. (Xinhua Photo).

2010-2018: international controversies and an atmosphere of tension.  The Peking government justified the increased restrictions commenced in 2005 by the need to protect ecosystems. However, diplomatically, for many, the real reason was a contentious (as yet unresolved) dispute with Japan. At the core of the dispute is sovereignty over the Senkaku islands (and the vast petroleum deposits in the surrounding waters). At first, the question involved only the island nation but then widened to include Europe and the United States as well. A reduction of Chinese supplies would have endangered, if not wholly paralysed, the high-tech industry in these countries. Meanwhile, rare-earth mineral prices had risen by 300%, with peaks as high as 4000%. The controversy was resolved by the WTO which recognised that China had violated international law. But it was not until December 2014 that the Peking government removed export limits, normalising the situation.
The international community nevertheless launched a series of initiatives to reduce chronic dependence on Chinese rare-earth minerals. The European Union, which cannot rely on new deposits, is seeking to establish accords with alternative trusted producers.
More recently, to boot, the United States tried to distance itself from Peking. The question originated when China threatened reactions due to the economic war launched by the US. The possibility of a break in the supply chain of the electronic industry gave rise in the USA to the emergence of the need to invest heavily in research and the development of alternative materials to rare-earth minerals.

A machine extracts rare-earth materials at the Bayan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia, China. (Photo/VCG).

China and rare-earth minerals today: consolidated leadership? The economic and geopolitical affairs involving China and its strategy and control of rare-earth minerals are therefore many. Nevertheless, it is believed that Peking will probably succeed in maintaining its leadership of the market, for two reasons in particular.
Firstly, even after 2018, the silent Chinese tactics for the monopoly of rare-earth minerals does not seem to have changed. Increasingly severe norms for mining and exporting minerals, as well as a reduction in production are still the basis of the government programme. In this way, Peking has a hold over a large part of the large hi-tech companies. This means that prices rise and any reason is sufficient for reducing exports (like at present, due to transport difficulties caused by the pandemic).
The second reason is that, even though they are not ‘rare’, as the name would suggest, the work of mining and processing these elements is very expensive. Most of all, it is complex and not easily replicated. In other words, China can depend upon incalculable expertise. “The rare-earth elements are peculiar in that their deposits were formed in a completely different way.
Therefore, the mining methods cannot be replicated or exported to other countries”, explained Rodrìguez-Blanco, a geologist and professor of micro-mineralogy at Trinity College Dublin. “An example: the manner of separating the minerals at the Bayan Obo sites in Mongolia would be completely useless in an Australian or African quarry”.

Vittoria Mamerti/Valori

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